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Description:

Grants to USA, Canada, and International academic and research institutions for research and empirical studies assessing the health effects of actions taken to improve air quality. A preliminary application must be submitted before applying. Funding may be used for larger studies or for smaller-scale methods development studies.

Accountability research refers to empirical studies assessing the effects of regulatory actions, other interventions, or “natural” experiments on air pollution and health (sometimes also referred to as intervention studies). Request for Applications (RFA) 18-1 solicits applications for studies designed to assess the health effects of actions to improve air quality and to develop methods required for, and specifically suited to, conducting such research. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

(1) Long-term complex regulatory programs: studies that evaluate regulatory and other actions at the national or regional level implemented over multiple years;

(2) Interventions at the local level: studies that evaluate actions targeted at improving air quality in urban areas, with well-documented air quality problems and programs to address them, including but not limited to low emission zones, congestion charging, and so-called diesel bans;

(3) Ports and global transport: studies that evaluate regulatory and other actions to improve air quality around major ports (both marine and air) and transportation hubs and corridors;

(4) Methods development and dissemination: studies that develop, apply and disseminate statistical and other methodology for conducting such research.

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Eligibility:

Additional Eligibility Criteria:

HEI welcomes applications from academic and other public and private research institutions in the US, Europe, and elsewhere.

Active cooperation of government regulatory and public health agencies may also be necessary for this research, but as would be the case with any research that HEI might fund, HEI cannot consider applications from employees of environmental regulatory agencies at the local, state, or federal levels who are responsible for developing and implementing regulations or from employees of private industries who are responsible for complying with such regulations. Such individuals may, of course, play roles as purveyors of data or other information that they collect and maintain and may be compensated by the investigators for reasonable costs entailed in providing such information. Employees of governmental agencies (such as state and local departments of public health) who do not usually have responsibility for promulgating or implementing actions to improve air quality may apply for and receive funding to conduct research under RFA 18-1.

Successful research proposals will in most cases require the collaboration of experts in air pollution measurement and assessment of human exposure, epidemiology, medicine, risk assessment, and biostatistics. The Foundation's experience in evaluating the previous rounds of accountability research proposals confirms the importance of the active involvement of each key discipline in the study design. Any poorly developed component may affect the disposition of the entire proposal. Researchers are encouraged to consult government and policy experts to find out about opportunities to study specific regulations and obtain a good understanding of their scope and implementation schedules.

Pre-Application Information:

The submission and review of applications for RFA 18-1 will entail a two-stage process:

- Investigators should submit a Preliminary Application by February 15, 2019. The HEI Research Committee will discuss the preliminary applications and invite a limited number of investigators to
submit a full application. Feedback will be provided in late March.
- Invited investigators should submit a Full Application by May 20, 2019. Full applications will be reviewed by a Special Review Panel before consideration by the Research Committee.